


Courier's Mile

by questionablesidekick



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen, The Divide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 06:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13851987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionablesidekick/pseuds/questionablesidekick
Summary: The Courier returns to the Divide, to face what she's done, past and present.





	Courier's Mile

**First Return to The Divide**

 

“Ulysses.” 

 

“Courier.”   
  


She doesn’t say anything for a long while, and he doesn’t turn around. There’s a radiation storm brewing, down in the ruins of Hopeville. It won’t reach the cliffs. The Pipboy is still beeping, giving her a read on residential radiation if she cares to look down at her wrist.

 

The wind howls, when she speaks again. It’s an omen, Ritka things. The Divide is trying to drown her words. She still speaks louder than the wind.

 

“For you  _ Courier _ .” Ritka says, and drops the bag at his back. His shoulders stiffen. He doesn’t say a word. “Take what you want from it.”

 

“Don’t need whatever you want to call this.” He says, finally. “Coming from you, who knows what meaning you put into it.”

 

“It’s stimpacks. Rad-X. Radaway.” Ritka sighs. Christ. No matter what he does with the bag, it’s his. She made the delivery. “This isn’t a message.”

 

He laughs. “Everything is, with you.”

 

**Second visit to the Divide**

 

Ulysses isn’t at the ledge when she arrives. Ritka drops the bag where he normally sits, and hesitates.

 

She had never really looked at what she’d done to Hopeville. The main area of the city was eroding slowly by the shrieking winds, the outer limits of the city an irradiated ruin. From where she was, she could see the green fog that surrounded it. 

 

“Been calling it the Courier’s Mile, after the woman who created it.”

 

She started, hand dropping to her pistol before realizing who’d spoken. “If you’d like.” She said, eventually. “A legacy that I deserve.” He must have just been down to the ruins. He was holding the first pack she’d given him in one hand, filled with salvage. Another was slung over one shoulder, allowing unrestricted access to the flagpole slung across the other. 

 

There was a pause. She turned to look back over the ruins. 

 

“My name for it. If you have a better one, you grant it- my choice in names won’t carry past you or I.” There was a thump as he dropped the pack onto the ground, and then another as he dropped the second. “Have you a reason for being here, or have you only come to look at the destruction you once wrought?”

 

“Supplies.” Ritka said. “Same as last time.” She paused, before asking, quietly, “The Courier’s Mile, have you walked it?”

 

She turns towards him. Ulysses is tired, and covered in dust, the paleness of it contrasting heavily against his skin. He’s not looking at her, and is starting to sort through the packs. She gestures towards one, he pauses, before shoving it towards her. 

 

Most of this pack is salvage, with a few bowie knives she guesses he looted from corpses. It’s easy sorting. Electronics, metal, burnables. After a moment, she puts the books in their own separate pile. 

 

“Lies along the road, running from the Hopeville Silo...straight on to where the ground burns, and the wind howls even stronger than here. Marked Men have made their home there, fleeing from the ruins you’ve made of their camps. Been there, only once. You go there, radiation will kill you before the Marked Men do.” Ulysses rocks back onto his heels. “That’s part of the reason of why I’m here. Watch them - if they attack me, try to enter the Mojave, I answer. Not looking to kill them…save them, if I can.” The way he says it, she knows he hasn’t been able to save any. “There might be something saving in them. If not, then what I do is mercy, not murder.” 

 

“I won’t say different.” Ritka said. “It’s no different than ferals.” 

 

Night was falling in the Divide. If she didn’t leave soon, there’d be no point in leaving at all. Ritka wasn’t sure if she wanted to. This was almost compainable. Almost felt like forgiveness. 

 

“You think they’re  _ ferals _ ? Think that they, who maintain the uniforms of the Bear and the Bull, who plan, who use weapons, that they’re ferals? This a lie you tell yourself to remove the guilt of your actions here, or a belief you don’t wish to get rid of?” He stood up, moving back when she mimicked his actions. 

 

“You think that they’re  _ not _ ?” Ritka spat back. “You think that regular ghouls  _ eat  _ other ghouls, Ulysses? You think regular ghouls don’t  _ talk _ ?” 

 

“They maintain  _ rank _ ,” Ulysses snarled, “They maintain  _ uniforms.  _ You think that points to them being the same as ferals?” He started to pace, tight turns that kept her in her line of sight. “You think that they have  _ forgotten,  _ what you have done?”

 

“Goodbye, Ulysses.” Ritka said, and shoulder checked him on her way out of the Divide. 

 

**Third return to the Divide**

 

Ulysses wasn’t around when she returned. Ritka dropped the bag, again, where he would normally sit. “Fuck.” she said, and then, louder. “Fuck!”

 

She entered the Silo. It was quieter, than when she had first entered it. Ulysses had been through, more than once, his boot prints still visible in the dust. She would need to be quick, but she still needed to pay her respects.

 

The pods were empty, and closed. It felt like a tomb, and it was. 

 

Ritka unshouldered her pack. Carefully, she opened it, and removed the poster contained with in. She unrolled it. 

 

Ralphie the robot, and the man next to him look back at her. She plastered it onto the sole open pod, taking her time, making sure it wasn’t crooked. “I wanted to thank you,” she said, “ED-E, the one that I left in the Mojave, they said they remembered what happened here. They’d carry it with them.I almost wish you hadn’t done that. Hell of a thing, hell of a ghost.” 

 

She heaved a sigh. “It was your choice. It was my fault, but it was your choice.” Ritka picked her pack back up. “You were always so excited when we found those posters, hanging up in the back alleys, in the bedrooms. Woulda carried a radio that’d play it, but the noise… a poster was better.” It looked pathetic, hanging up by itself. It wasn’t nearly enough. “Thanks, ED-E.”

 

“Courier.” 

 

Ulysses had a habit of sneaking up on her. Ritka turned to face him. Not salvaging this time, hunting. He was holding a pair of Deathclaw hands, holding a pack gingerly. Probably eggs. 

 

“Wasn’t expecting you to return.” He said, after a moment. 

 

“That’s me. Always surprising.”

 

The hands were leaking blood onto the tiled floor. 

 

“Paying respects to the Eyebot that you carried?” He nodded towards the poster, she scowled. 

 

“I owe a debt,” Ritka said, “I owe a debt for what I did here, and I’ve waited too long to pay it back. And I’ll pay it back, one way or another.”

 

“Debt with the Divide isn’t something to be paid, Courier. It’s something to be carried.” Ulysses replied. 

 

“Would you call me by my  _ name _ ?” Ritka said. “It’s Ritka Anderson, if you’ve forgotten. It’s not  _ Courier _ . I’m more than my title, and if you want to reduce me down to that, I’ll start reducing you to yours,  _ Courier. _ ”   
  


“I’m not that, not anymore.” He said, eyes tightening. 

 

“You keep delivering  _ messages _ ,” She said. “What the hell are you, if you ain’t that?” 

 

There was a long silence, then. The two of them, staring at each other. 

 

“Share a meal, before you leave.” Ulysses offered. “Anderson.” 

 

“Alright.” Ritka said. “Between the two of us, I think we’ll have meal. Unless you're planning on just eating the hands.”

 

“Was, had some Cram.” He started back to the Divide entrance, and Ritka followed him. “If you only have that, might as well keep it for yourself.”   
  


“Peppers, some yucca fruit.” She replied. “Might have some carrots.”

 

Ritka veered towards the outcropping, collected the bag. Ulysses waited until she was behind him, and kept walking. 

 

The meal was quiet. Neither of them had much to say to the other, and she wasn’t interested in rekindling the argument that they’d had before. She left the rest of the greens she had in the bag she’d carried to leave in the Divide. Ulysses watched her, didn’t say anything.

 

“Goodbye, Ulysses.” Ritka said, when she finished. “Thank you for the meal.”

 

“Anderson.” He said. “Be here, when you return.” 

 

She paused, and then kept walking. 

 


End file.
